It Gets Better

As you might already know, there have been five gay teenagers who have committed suicide in the last three weeks. The most prominently reported is below:

CNN

As you know, I am bisexual. As I’ve discussed before, it was incredibly difficult for me to come to terms with this fact. I dealt with a lot of childish bullying at the time. A lot of people who, up until that point, had been my friends suddenly had a different view of me. They’ll say it was my attitude or that I somehow misrepresented myself or that I hurt their feelings in some way. I’m sure in some cases, those statements would be true. But I will also say that a lot of the bullying came from immaturity. It came from being scared of something you don’t know anything about. It came from people trying to make sense of something they don’t have experience with. It also, I’m sure, came from the sophomoric impulse to take someone else down a peg. (By the way, many people don’t grow out of this impulse.) I don’t have any ill will towards any of these people at all, we were all still learning.

Those were, however, some of the darkest days of my life. Any kid has a number of stressors on them: job, school, family, friends, identity. I had all of those problems and then some. But those problems don’t take a backseat when you are struggling with your sexuality. They are just as front and center as anyone else’s problems are combined with a crushing feeling of loneliness. If you have no one to talk to or to support you, I can see how that loneliness and “otherness” could translate into suicidal thoughts.

I’ve never seriously considered suicide. I’ve had moments where I’ve wanted everything to stop. I catch myself mumbling about wanting to kill myself all day long but that’s honestly my dramatic nature. If I were ever to have committed suicide though, it would surely have been during those days. I hope I never know that kind of low again in my life.

The only reason I have never considered suicide as an option is because a good friend of mine committed suicide when I was a teenager. She had good reason to be depressed but even then it struck me how almost silly it was. Here was a vivacious girl, life of the party, all the boys wanted to date her, all of the girls wanted to be her best friend. Least likely person to do such a thing if you didn’t know what she was up against in other areas of her life. And I didn’t know. Not until recently did I find out the actual circumstances of her life and subsequent death. Only recently have I been able to make peace with this loss.

So that makes me kind of lucky in a weird way. I’m not lucky to have lost my friend but to have learned the lesson. I’d give ten years or more off of my own life to give her hers back. I love her so much and it was devastating at the time to find out that she felt like there was nothing left for her in this world. She was fifteen.

Some of you also know that I have been intimately acquainted with two other suicides. Six years ago, me, Kristyn, my sister and her friend rented an apartment together. We were there for a month and just unpacked when Labor Day came around. We went out to a bar on Friday night and had some people over afterwards. In the morning, we were woken up to find paramedics, police and detectives all over the place. Our landlord had attempted to kill himself with carbon monoxide in the garage and then succeeded by slitting his wrists. He had a last minute change of heart but it was too late. He was 45.*

In 2008, we got a call from Kristyn’s Dad (who was our landlord at the time), to rush home. The tenant above us had not showed up to work and wasn’t answering the phone or his door. His family were afraid he’d hurt himself. They called the police and Kristyn gave them the spare key we had (in case anyone got locked out). He was found hanging by his belt. He was 32.*

I tell you these horrible stories because I am forced to think about them all the time. How senseless and unnecessary. How much hurt and confusion spreads from an event like that. Hurts everyone it touches. And I can’t even begin to imagine the pain you have to endure to make that decision. This is going to sound like a put-on but whenever it is a particularly nice day or something incredible happens, I think about how much they’re missing out on and how I’ll never do that to myself. If nothing else, their deaths have made me realize how precious my own is. And THAT is what drives me to want a better life for myself and the people around me.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that it gets so much better if you give life a chance. During my darkest days I could never have imagined my life as it is now. We are struggling right now with money but every day I still feel so lucky. I’m lucky to wake up. I’m lucky for my health, Kristyn, for being in LA (a lifelong dream come true), for my cats, my family, that I have good friends, that I have food, that I have shelter, that I have more cameras than exciting events to take pictures of, of being able to work in the entertainment industry with such consistently good people (another huge dream realized), that I have the ability to laugh at myself, that I know how to enjoy my life…the list goes on and on and on. He point is: It got SO much better.

Dan Savage is an out advice and sex columnist who, with his boyfriend Terry, decided to start something called the “It Gets Better Project”. The idea is for adults to make videos for teens about the bullying they’d endured, either because they are gay or considered different. The project is aimed at gay teens but can really be for anyone who has ever been bullied for any reason. They tell their stories of bullying, how it made them feel at the time and how/when their lives improved. Take a couple of minutes and watch their video, it’s sweet, funny and intelligent.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IcVyvg2Qlo&feature=youtube_gdata_player]

Also, Ellen DeGeneres made a video about the suicides that should also be watched because she knows firsthand what it is to be bullied for your sexual orientation:

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B-hVWQnjjM&feature=youtube_gdata_player]

As I have stated in the past, I believe that sexuality is like a ruler. You have straight people on one end, gay on the other and all the measurements in between. There are only two small ends to a ruler and a TON of middle. This means that most everyone’s sexuality falls somewhere in between those two extremes, whether or not you acknowledge it (or have the opportunity to *wink*). I know for a fact that many people (straight AND gay) struggle with this idea because people like to put comfortable labels on things. The point is that people have come to me with questions about my sexuality or their own, either out of curiosity or bc they’re struggling. If any of you reading this have anything you want to talk about, PLEASE email me at buberellasblog@gmail.com (or at my regular email address or FB if you have it). Even contact me anonymously if you want to. Whether the questions are about me or about you (or a “friend”), I swear to God I will never repeat what you said to anyone and I will never, ever, ever judge you. As long as your questions about me don’t violate anyone else’s privacy, you will get a straight answer from me. I know how hard this can be. Just don’t EVER feel like suicide is an option. It will ALWAYS get better.

And with regards to “what other people think”, I have a few opinions and I’ll bullet point them:

* It is not an LGBTQ person’s duty to inform you of their LGBTQ status just as it is not your duty to inform them of your douchebag status (to clarify straight doesn’t = douchebag, douchebag = douchebag). If an LGBTQ person doesn’t tell you, they have their own reasons like anything in life.

* Many LGBTQ people are not out at work (like me typically). Again, everyone has their own reasons. In my case, I’ve seen Kristyn get discriminated at her last two jobs in NJ bc of it.

* Bigotry is alive and well. Read any of the articles about the teen suicides and you’ll see people defending the bullies in the comments section. (Which, in a way, is also appropriate bc these bullies are just kids too. I think of boneheaded things I’ve said and done as a kid and cringe. People grow up but these kids will do it in jail and one won’t grow up at all. Something needs to be done. They need to be appropriately punished for their hand in this kids’ death and we need stiffer penalties for online and in-person bullying.) Someone just commented on my sister’s FB page that they’re against hate crime legislation because it’s not fair that those crimes are treated more seriously than other crimes. Yes. He permanently wrote those words on the Internet. Idiot.

* I’ve personally heard people talking about how disgusting “faggots” and “dykes” are. They don’t know how ignorant they sound or how hurtful those words are.

So yeah. If you are worried about what other people think, just remember that there are a lot of asshats and idiots in the world who just don’t know what they’re talking about. Don’t assume they know better (like I did). Just last week, a girl I was working with thoughtlessly said the word “faggot” in front of me and a gay guy. Later on that girl said to me, “Do you think that gay guy heard me say faggot?” I said, “No I don’t think he did.” But I did.

But also the point is that, just like everything else, people don’t know something until they know it. Practice as much tolerance as you want back. Don’t tolerate bullying but realize that everyone knows a gay person but some people don’t realize it. I like letting people meet me and know me for me before telling people that I’m gay. This way, even if someone is intolerant/scared, they now have a gay friend without realizing they’d made one. And people are much less scared by what they know and therefore much more understanding.

Also, family and friends come around. Everyone has intolerant people in their lives. You know what? That’s their own business. Don’t even discuss it with them then! Why start an argument over something you can’t change? Let them come to terms with their own lack of knowledge. Live your life well and let them do their own processing. People will tell you that it’s unfair of you to not “confess” but really, everyone just wants the latest scoop on a slow day. They’ll talk whether you do or not. Let them and do you. Don’t let anyone else fit you into their box.

And I do apologize for the heavy-handedness of this post. No. Actually, nevermind I don’t.

If you or someone you know is struggling with your sexuality and/or considering suicide, talk to your friends and family (or me, even if you do it anonymously!). If you are uncomfortable doing that, please go to:

The Trevor Project

They have useful info online as well as hotlines that you can call for help or just to talk.

It gets better. How do I know?

Ten years of experience.

* For anyone who read about the above-listed suicides when they actually happened, you will probably remember me varying between anger at the person and joking about it. I have an inherited Gallow’s Humor from my RN Mom and am quick to make a joke in a crazy situation like this. My whole family is like this. It’s laugh or cry right? That doesn’t mean I wasn’t sad for them or in general. Suicide is powerful and kind of settles on everyone in it’s periphery. It was and is sad and I wanted to clarify that for anyone who got the impression that I don’t take those events seriously. I have more to say on this subject but it’s bedtime, g’night!

2005

It was unseasonably warm on December 31, 2004 and me, Kristyn and Amanda had no plans. We decided that this would be the year that we’d brave Times Square for new Year’s Eve. Unlike the thousands who’d arrived to secure their spot at like, noon, we showed up around 7pm. We’d all had to work that day and weren’t interested in finding a way to hold our bladders from noon to midnight in the middle of Manhattan.

Even at 7pm, it was pandemonium. People were EVERYWHERE. You couldn’t even actually GET to actual factual Times Square anymore. All those sections were LONG taken and closed off by the NYPD.

We entered a maze of areas sectioned off with metal police horses. In each area, there was a set of police officers. You had to show your ID to the officers if you wanted to advance to the next level. It was so weird.

We finally got to the section we’d be in for the rest of the night. When I say it was “unseasonably warm”, it was probably 45 or 50 degrees outside, which is pretty warm for New Year’s Eve.

Because I have no sense, I took this to mean that it was beach weather and wore a flimsy jacket. I mean it IS still December/January and it IS still NYC and it IS still winter so I don’t know what I was thinking. So we spent a lot of time concocting ways to make our bodies fit in such a way that we were all always siphoning heat off of one another. There was nothing better to do.

It was weird to be in that caged up like that. You weren’t allowed to leave at all and if you really really HAD to leave for one reason or another, you’d probably never find your way back because of the elaborate (and necessary) screening process you have to endure on the way in. So we just willed ourselves not to urinate. We noticed that there were food vendors cleverly selling pizza and other things from the sides of the cages. Naturally we threw ourselves at the screaming melee of people and ordered a pizza. There were pizza boxes fng EVERYWHERE. We even scooped some of them up so sit on so we wouldn’t have to sit on the cold ground.

In front of us were a bunch of Norwegian tourists. They really made us happy. They were just so joyous and excited. If not for them, our moods would have soured with a quickness because unlike most New Year’s Eves, there are no couches to sit on, no champagne to sip, no hors doeuvres to much on. It’s just you, a cardboard box, the NYPD and a thin jacket.

After five HOURS (I don’t know how the “noon people” do it), it was time for the ball drop. We could see the back of it as it dropped but not for its entire trip down. As it got toward the “3…2…1” position, the buildings covered it up. Such is life. In the distance, we saw a ton of confetti rain down on the crowd. In our area, we were confetti-free, woo.

So basically immediately after the ball dropped, the entire crowd about-faced and started walking toward the train stations. So, we followed suit. We got back home probably about an hour later and didn’t want to go to bed yet. So, we decided to go to the Loop Lounge.

We’d bought “2005” sparkly glasses on the street in NYC and were still wearing them when we accidentally cut off an entire line of people waiting to get into the Loop. We literally sailed right in like we owned the place. The bouncer knew us and just let us go. We didn’t find out until later what we’d done. We were stone cold sober, just idiots. He’d been holding the line and letting people in as other people left so as not to overload the place and here comes our asses…OMG.

Inside, people were dancing and having a good time. We got some beer and started dancing too. Some gal was wearing a gigantic dunce cap that said “2005” on it. She approached me and asked if she could wear my glasses for a little while in exchange for her allowing me to wear her dunce cap. Of course, I agreed, thinking it would be a “little while”.

I was keeping an eye on her because I didn’t want her walking off with my glasses. I’d sat on the ground for five hours in NYC and probably had hemorrhoids now to earn those glasses. I lost track of her and got really pissed off at myself for letting that happen. BUT THEN.

I saw her in the crowd. She saw me see her and kind of tried to skirt away. I grabbed her arm and asked for the glasses back. She suggested that we keep the trade as it is. I told her that I went to Times Square and bought those glasses. They’re a keepsake and I want them. She actually told me that she knew that’s where I’d gotten them and had hid from me the entire night hoping I’d get drunk and forget so she can keep them. I snatched them away from her and plopped that stupid dunce cap back on her head. Haha…Shit.

Times Square!

A little later that month, George H. W. Bush was going to be sworn in for his second term. Like I said in my last blog, me and Kristyn were mad as hell and we weren’t gonna take it! We had enough bees in our bonnets that we decided to drive down to DC and protest the shit out of that inauguration and that is exactly what we did.

Krissy and Riot Police, haha.

We stayed in Bethesda, Maryland and took the Metro into DC on the day of the inauguration. It was craaaaaaazy there! Speaker systems everywhere broadcasting news coverage of the event. Barricades up everywhere. Riot Police on motorcycles, on horses, on foot. Protestors, revelers, families, DC Fat Cats. It was incredible.

And it was COLD. Oh my LORD was it cold. BUT we had bugs up our butts and we weren’t happy about it so we braved the cold so’s we could use our right to dissent in the form of a middle finger to the Commander in Chief. (Any Bush lovers reading this, settle down because if you could give President Obama the finger you’d revel in the opportunity especially in such a heated election as this had been.)

The crowd was crazy and super tense. The GWB fans were holding three fingers up in righteous indignation at the protestors’ signs. Me and Kristyn hadn’t thought to make any signs so we found some posterboard and scribbled some shit on it, haha.

So earnest.

There were like Puppets of George Bush, posters claiming all kinds of things like that Bush was responsible for the downturn in the environment (which he is) and that he is responsible for trying to tear down women’s rights (which he is) and that he is responsible for starting a war we can’t win (which he is) but whatever I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let’s just say it was interesting to see and leave it at that.

Some of the protestors were ridiculous and made us cringe. Like why would you riding unicycle in a clown suit while banging a drum make the Republicans say, “Oh they DO have a point there, don’t they?” That’s the kind of zealot I can’t stand…the ones who are there just to soak in the chaos of the moment and act a fool. Whatever.

I wanted to run through this banner so bad.

The FUNNIEST part though was the DC Fat Cats though. Here we all are, jammed into our winter coats, thermal underwear under our clothes, scarves covering our mouths and noses to keep warm. And here comes the Fat Cats. The men were decked out in tuxedos with calf-length expensive black wool coats and cravats. The women had ankle-length gigantic fur coats. You couldn’t have created a more divisive statement if you WANTED to.

So we got us a spot right on Pennsylvania Ave a couple of blocks down from the White House. There were sharpshooters on the top of all of the buildings. Decked out in all black, you could sometimes see their silhouettes when they stood closer to the edge of the building to get a better vantage point. It was terrifying.

We were on the sidewalk and in front of us, FACING us, were a line of Riot Police in total Riot Gear (with even the face shield). There was a divider but they wanted to make absolutely SURE that nothing happened to the motorcade and therefore stood watching us. It was definitely extremely eerie.

We’re standing there people watching and taking pictures. The crowd is largely chanting anti-Bush sentiments on and off. At this particular moment however, the crowd had settled down. There was a girl who’d been standing in front of us for a while. In a split fng second she was completely naked save for a pair of underwear. I don’t know how she did it or what it meant but one minute she’s standing in winter gear in front of the Police and the next minute she is naked and being lifted up and over the divider being naked arrested. It was awesome and I am so glad I caught a picture of it.

Clothed not a second prior.

As the motorcade started approaching, there were either three fingers or one finger stuck up on the air depending on which side of the party lines you fall on. Typically the President will get out and walk that last stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue where we actually were but not this time. The tension was too thick and it could not be risked.

I have to tell you, although I admit that it was immature, it was really, really awesome to be able to protest the inauguration like that. It didn’t change a damn thing but for sure, but it sure was nice to make a point.

At this time, Kristyn had like psychic lightening fingers. She was constantly finding us weird, cool shit to do at a moment’s notice. Somehow she found out that the cast of “The L Word” were having their premiere in NYC. We HAD to go just to see them and take pictures. It was pretty awesome and we got really close to the cast. I can’t find all of the pictures but we took a picture with Alice (Leisha Hailey), stood very close to Rosie O’Donnel and her wife as well as Tina (Laurel Holloman). We got pictures of Sandra Bernhard and even talked to Gloria fricking Steinem for a hot second! I saw her and tried to take her picture. She said, “What’re you taking a picture of me for? I’m just a publicist…” My FOOT.* But what was most awesome was that Kristyn got to take a picture with Shane (Kate Moennig). SO exciting! Oh AND, if you ever thought for one second that Jennifer Beals was just “alright looking”, you are WRONG. I thought she was just “eh” until I saw her in person. “Statuesque” is the word I’d use for what she looks like up close. “Stunning” is another word. Damn, good for you Jennifer Beals!

Kristyn and Shane AKA Kate Moennig

Bette AKA Chick from Flashdance AKA Jennifer Beals

* I think it was this same year that we got tickets to go to V Day event at the Apollo Theater. Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda, Eve Ensler, Rosie Perez, Marissa Tomeii and a coupla other gals were there. It was so awesome. Michelle Branch played a rendition of “Wild Horses” on the piano that made me cry so hard! It was awesome.

Probably between 2004 and 2005, we had gotten heavily obsessed with a memoirist named Laurie Notaro. Unless you hate yourself and don’t like laughing, READ HER BOOKS. They are beyond hysterically funny. We both worked at a publishing company at this time and drove to work together. We used to read her books aloud to each other on the way to and from work and just cry laughing. Start with The Idiot Girls’ Action Adventure Club and go from there. SO good.

Anyway, Kristyn’s psychic magic fingers found out that she would be doing a reading and then a signing at the Barnes and Noble in Union Square so we were THERE. She was so nice and so funny and it was a total honor to meet her.

Kristyn, Me, Laurie Notaro

THEN Kristyn’s favorite band, Sleater-Kinney, came out with a new CD, “The Woods”. I liked Sleater-Kinney at the time but I didn’t LOVE Sleater-Kinney at the time. After seeing them live a couple times, I totally do. BUT being that I wasn’t star-struck, I was like, “Hey Kristyn, lets get our pictures taken with them.” She was like, “Oh no we can’t do that, now way, please omg, yes let’s do it, not let’s not I don’t want to piss anyone off.” I was all, “What’re they gonna do, shank us? They say no, we just scram.” So like the naturally annoying person I am, I asked them for a picture and this is what happened.

Carrie was the sweetest and I’m glad because I read a blog that she does for NPR and I’m glad I can read it knowing she is a legitimately nice person.

Me, Carrie Brownstein, Kristyn

Corin was really, really friendly too!

Me, Corin Tucker, Kristyn

Janet was a little annoyed at us frankly, haha. She wasn’t annoyed to take the picture necessarily but she BECAME annoyed with us (understandably) when we wouldn’t stand still for the picture. She stood on the right side of me which would have made the picture be her, me, Kristyn. Since SHE is the person of interest in the pictures and since Kristyn is the bigger fan, I wanted her to be in the middle. So I started kind of playing musical chairs like running around her because the more I moved, the more she moved until she was basically like, “Will YOU cut it out?!” Haha. I was like, “Yes I will but you have to please stand HERE.” So yes I managed to turn a celebrity photo op into an episode of the The Benny Hill Show but we got our picture and she got to get away from us. Everybody wins!

Me, Janet Weiss, Kristyn

2005 was also the year that we met the Gossip which I outlined in a previous post and will not bore you with again. Still, I had to add a picture because it was awesome.

Beth Ditto, Hannah Blilie

We did other things apart from meet celebrities but not much. We were working pretty hard at this point and dealing with bunny drama for much of this year.

Did you know that the gestation cycle of a rabbit is 30 days? Also, did you know that they can be impregnated immediately following birth or even while pregnant? Were you aware that rabbits can become pregnant OR impregnate a rabbit oh, almost immediately? Yeah us neither.

THIS is how we ended up with twelve rabbits. Despite our best efforts, Little ended up pregnant, three separate times. I mean guys, we made cages for them in separate rooms, padlocked the cages and STILL put a gate up between rooms and Biggie was still able to tap that ass.

Long story short (too late), we ended up having to spend much of 2005 finding homes for rabbits. We gave them to people we knew and worked closely with the Humane Society in Lyndhurst to find them homes as well. Actually, one of the rabbits is living at NYU’s Rusk Center for Rehabilitation. He is an on-site rabbit who is there to be petted by and played with by children and adults with physical or mental disabilities. I went to see him last year and I could *swear* he knew who I was. I wanted to bring him home!

It was really rough parting with all those little guys. They were soooo cute BUT it was also REALLY rough caring for all of them. Once rabbits reach a certain age, they cannot be together anymore. Rabbits will fight to the death if you keep ones that don’t get along together.

Also, not all of them survived. On Little’s second pregnancy, we counted the babies in the morning and the sum total was six. When we went back and counted again, there were only four. Wha-wha-wha? We had no idea what could possibly have happened and prayed that we wouldn’t come upon a bunny zombie later on.

WELL on Little’s third pregnancy, we DEFINITELY found out what happened to the bunnies we couldn’t find. She’d recently given birth to some babies that all seemed healthy but she’d done it on the top floor of her cage. I found one of them on the floor. She must have given birth and it must’ve just fallen through the cracks. WELL, initially he looked fine but we eventually saw that his hind legs were atrophied. They were stuck out straight, kind of dark and totally useless. We like animals that are disabled so we LOVED him immediately. One night, I was sitting in the kitchen with the bunnies. I had him in my hand when Little hopped up. She started sniffing him and I held him out thinking she might groom him. Bitch actually BIT OFF a section of one of his legs!!! WHAT?! I couldn’t even look at her. Both of us were SO DISTURBED and immediately separated him from the pack. Clearly we were dealing with a mini lop-eared psychopath.

Little plotting her next kill.

We soon found out that rabbits eat their young if something is wrong with them.  This is another prey mechanism for protecting the whole of the family.  They can sense if there is something inherently wrong with their young like if they’re sick or damaged and in order to leave zero trace of the rest of the babies, they just eat’m up.  “What baby?”

Separating this little guy from the pack posed a problem though because it is vital that a rabbit feed from its mother when it’s born. It’s chances of living are 0% to 0% when they’re that young. They need to drink from the mother but also, and this is sort of gross to hang onto your cookies…The mother begins producing poopies called “cecotropes”. Typically bunny duts are just little hard balls of like hay or whatever. The cecotropes are a little different in shape and consistency and are SERIOUSLY infused with vitamins and minerals that are absolutely vital to a rabbit’s health. I mean, I spose you could stuff a poopie in the rabbit’s pie hole but I don’t think that’s how he wants to eat it. And you CAN buy synthetic kitten milk and feed it with a bottle but that’s not really useful for the rabbit so much as it is for you feeling better about not letting it starve to death.

So we named him “Stumpy” and were hoping for a full recovery. We’d already decided that should Stumpy pull through, we’d keep him and make him our favorite pet. We wanted to lavish him with a little bunny wheelchair and laugh at him as he tooled around our apartment. We made him a bed in a shoebox filled with towels. We woke up in the morning and found that Stumpy had taken the first Haley-Bopp comet out of town and would see us in another lifetime. *Sads*

So we wanted to give him a proper Viking burial but no one had a boat or flaming arrows to speak of. So we went to Amanda’s house and decided to bury him amongst Amanda’s sundry ex-pets on the side of her house. We brought little Stumpy in his box and each took turns digging the small grave. We’re all lapsed Catholics so we read a passage or two from the Bible and “lowered him into the ground”. Amanda started filling in the hole and wanted to make sure that nothing could dig it up because her cats are outdoor/indoor and there are a lot of strays in the area. In her zeal to make sure Stumpy’s grave would be untarnished, she forgot the reverence of the moment and started taking the shovel and BASHING it into the dirt over and over again, intending to flatten it down. The sight of Amanda wielding a shovel so VIOLENTLY at a bunny funeral had me and Kristyn questioning her sanity and laughing hysterically.

That Spring, we came home one night and for no damn reason at all, Biggie was dead. In order to keep him away from Little, we’d taken to separating them in cages, in separate rooms with a gate between the rooms. Still, he was always finding ways to break out of his cage and get into the kitchen. SO we started piling things up in front of the gate to save Little and ourselves any further grief. In our enthusiasm to help the situation, we probably inadvertently caused Biggie’s death. We found him in the kitchen. He must have just died. I think he probably tried to jump over the obstacle, got caught on something and broke his back. Rabbit bones are hollow and therefore extremely easy to break. SO, we had another funeral on our hands. This time, we buried him in Kristyn’s parents’ yard. Again we had another little ceremony.

One good thing that DID come out of Biggie and Little’s union was Moe.  He was one of the ones we were SUPPOSED to get rid of but ended up keeping.  He was beautiful and huge and VIOLENT.  He was the leader of the pack and had not only attacked all of the other rabbits but also once accidentally bit Kristyn’s FACE.  I had to take her to the doctor for a tetanus shot and while she was there, she accidentally flashed her derrierre off to all of the nurses.

Moe in a bookcase.

But bad news comes in threes so naturally, and I knew it was almost Mitten’s time to hang up her hat. I knew that I wanted to get another cat IMMEDIATELY following her death because I just couldn’t imagine living without her and wanted a distraction. We went to Petco on Route 3 and they were having a pet adoption fair. When we approached, there was this little kitty that looked EXACTLY like Mitten from behind. When she turned around, we saw that she was missing one eye. She was so sweet and so pretty and we LOVED her. I said, “If we didn’t have Mitten, I would have adopted that cat today.”

Two weeks later, in the span of a week, she stopped drinking, stopped eating and lost a ton of weight. I was holding out hope for her to rally but really I knew that this was probably it. On Friday night, we came home from work and Mitten was on the armchair. She jumped off of it to greet us like she always does but when she hit the floor, she collapsed. Her forehead was extremely stiff and we were SO freaked out. I called my mother in hysterics and she came over. My mother is a nurse and told me that Mitten was just dehydrated and this is what happens to people and animals when they’re dying sometimes. It was an extremely stormy night and I wanted to go put her to sleep immediately because I couldn’t take the thought of her suffering. My mother pointed out that she wasn’t suffering at all and I realized that that was true. She wasn’t crying, she wasn’t in pain. She was looking up at me with love. If we’d gone out into the storm, it would have been nuts because it was like, flood conditions outside. So my mother gave me some money, told me to wait until morning and just to keep her comfortable. I’d hoped she’d pass away over night like I always wanted her to. When we woke up the next morning, she was even worse off and it was time to go. She was clearly uncomfortable now and couldn’t move. She followed me with her eyes but I could see that she was ready to go. We put some soft beach towels in a box and laid her on top of them. In the car, I petted her and we listened to soft music. The last song that played before we got out of the car was “Modern Girl” by Sleater-Kinney. The refrain of that song is:

My whole life
was like a picture
of a sunny day

My whole life
looked like a picture
of a sunny day

I am crying now thinking about it, ugh. We brought her inside and were brought into a room. The vet tech was immediately sympathetic because she’d had a little Tortie herself who’d passed. The doctor explained what was going to happen. I sat there petting her and staring into her eyes as she passed. She knew she was loved.

I’m so glad it happened like this. I’d always hoped that when she died, she’d go at home, in peace. But honestly, in all likelihood, she would have been alone because that is the nature of cats, to go hide and die alone. Instead, she told me that it was her time and I got to hold her hand and comfort her as she went. It was perfect.

I love you Mitten!

After that, we immediately went to a couple of shelters. Kristyn suggested that maybe we wait but I didn’t want to. Mitten meant a LOT to me and her loss would create a HUGE hole in my life that I really, really didn’t want to face. Plus there are a lot of kitties in this world that need a home TODAY. Why not let one little guy or gal do double duty and make us both happy?

At work that week, when Mitten was still winding down, suddenly the name “Edith” had popped into my head. I love me some “All in the Family” and ESPECIALLY Edith but hadn’t seen the show in a long time. BUT that name popped up and I knew I was looking for Edith.

We went to a couple of shelters and met a few ADORABLE cats who were all contenders but not quite Edith. None of them felt right. At the end of the day, Kristyn said, “Why don’t we go back and see if that one-eyed kitty is still there?” We did and as soon as we saw her again, I was like, “THAT’S EDITH!!!” We signed the paperwork but couldn’t take her home for another two weeks.

This pictures sums up Edith. She's a tough broad who deals with my craziness with grace and hilarity.

In the meantime, we decided to have a funeral for Mitten. She’d been my best friend, sister and advisor for 18 years and deserved a proper sendoff. We invited our friends, cleaned the house and prepared a spread. All funerals have the “after funeral eating times” so we figured we should provide the same. Also, for no damn reason, we bought a shit load of cat bobbleheads from the dollar store to give out as souvenirs. Bad taste I know but you love it. The BEST part was that I made a kitty litter cake which basically looks like this:

So delicious, so disgusting.

Here’s the recipe:

Read-a-Thon ~ Go Eat Kitty Litter!

Oh and it’s delicious even if it did shock and anger our guests, haha.

It was rough going with her at first bc a) she’s come from an abuse situation and doesn’t trust humans or other animals and b) I was used to having a cat who wanted almost too much of my attention, not one who wouldn’t let me touch her. So it was kind of heart-breaking at first, actually HAVING a cat but not being allowed to interact with said cat.

But she’s come a long, long way. She still hates cats but she looooooves her some humans. She lets me pick her up, she lets me pet her and she’s such a happy little girl. She IS a total weirdo though. She tends toward sudden violence, she hisses at everything and doesn’t like to move around if she doesn’t have to. We learned quickly to laugh at the hissing and violence because it’s all just drama. And we basically had to FORCE her to enjoy being petted and picked up but tough titties on that. You WILL be loved and you WILL like it…and she does.

I think that’s enough for 2005. It was a crazy year. I made a helluva lot of vegetarian empanadas in 2005. Also my brother gave me a lamp that said, “Bitch” on it for Christmas and I cried but now I think it’s funny. Also we had a huge snowstorm and my brother walked to our house in the middle of the night in shorts and socks to come play board games with me, Kristyn and Christine, haha.  Oh and I realized I was bisexual in 2005. Oh I also slipped on a patch of ice and broke a bottle of wine in 2005 which sucked. Oh and we went to an anti-nuclear war rally in 2005. AND we marched in some protest that I can’t even remember what it was for and got mixed in with a section of Communists.

Like I said, 2005 was a radical mess, haha.

The Way Things Are

Bisexual Pride Flag, Pink is love of same sex, Blue is love of opposite sex, Purple is area in between

Guys, this might not be news to you and I’ve discussed this on my other blog, but I am Bisexual. Bisexual IS Gay, Queer, LGBTQ whatever. That is who I am. (I’ve posted blogs about this before but stay tuned.)

I was just doing some dishes and thinking about a subject I broached on one of my travel blogs. We were at a Denny’s in Minnesota and two men and a woman were talking about homosexuality and all the topics that go along with is: Marriage, Is it a choice?, Are they going to hell?, Is it unnatural?, etc, etc, etc. And I was getting mad. And Kristyn was getting mad. She (rightly) stopped me from saying something. I wasn’t going to yell at them because why bother? Me yelling at ANYONE has never gotten my point across. I just thought it would be funny to spook them. Introduce us as a couple and say we overheard them talking then leave. Leave them with the thought that “we’re everywhere and we’re listening”, haha. It would’ve been sort of cruel but it would’ve been funny. And Kristyn was right to stop me bc why the hell bother? For sure, me doing that would just prove “the obnoxious and innate nature of gays” right? So that was that.

But I was thinking about how if I had the moment to do over again, it would have been interesting to sit down with them and find out *why* it is that they feel that way? Like yeah the Bible, blahblahblah, but me and Kristyn were raised in Catholic households. We were Christened, made our Holy Communion, Reconciliation and were confirmed. I don’t go to church anymore but we both spent 8 years at CCD. We both say prayers at night, celebrate Catholic holidays and traditions. So it’s not that we’re heathens is the point that I’m making.

So, growing up, I was mostly attracted to boys. All my crushes were boys, all the celebs I drooled over were boys. I even had a crush on Mr. Rogers and my first real life boy crush was in Kindgergarten and his name was Michael Bender. I thought girls in my class were pretty but it was always more like a “I wish my hair was like that” sort of thing. I didn’t date like my friends did but that’s because my father was a teenage boy and went above and beyond to make sure I respected myself enough not only to say “No” but “Get the f out of my face or my father will knock you into 2040”. Apparently he did *too* good of a job because my knee-jerk reactionfor everything is to say, “Get the f out of my face or my father will knock you into 2040” …*sigh* Haha. So when I started dating finally, I wasn’t putting on some stupid ACT. I wasn’t using anyone. I wasn’t wishing I were with someone else. I was right there, where I wanted to be.

And so when I started dating Kristyn, it was as much a shock to me as it was to everyone else. I mean, I’d never ruled out the possibility of dating a woman because I don’t like to rule out the possibility of doing anything (positive/non-negative) in my life. A part of me knew for sure that if I fell for a woman, I’d go for it so long as I was happy.

When I started dating Kristyn, I’d just gotten out of a relationship with someone I loved very much. I left that relationship because my parents were divorcing and I was bugged out and he was starting to talk seriously and I was wigged the hell out. I’d been in a relationship for a long, long time and wanted to be single. So when me and Kristyn got together I was wigged out because a) OMG! A girl! and b) What am I doing? I want to be single!!! So it sucked all around. I was seen as a liar to that guy. As a liar to Krisytn. As selfish. As a person who’s been lying about their identity. As a pig. It was kinda terrible and traumatic. There was a lot of intolerance against me and there were some people who were just surprisingly okay with me being me.

So fast forward almost ten years (ten years!) and me and Kristyn are STILL together and we are STILL happy. Above all else, she is my favorite person in the entire world and the best friend I’ve ever had. I have always been and will always be sorry for hurting that one guy’s feelings because he is a really, truly, standup guy with a huge heart that I still miss on a regular (another great friend).

So I’ve been hella, hella, hella lucky in love in my life. It’s bc I was hugged and kissed a lot by my family and taught to respect myself. That being said, no one in my family is gay that I know of. No one in Kristyn’s family is gay that I know of. We were raised in straighty-straight environments where people had good relationships (for the most part), got married and had kids. Kristyn’s family is really tight and in our own way, mine is too. So there’s nothing “wrong” with us and there’s no “bad influences” and this isn’t a “choice” it just is what it is.

And regarding human sexuality, I have a theory, and you can like this or not but I know it’s true (and I’ll tell you why in a minute) whether or not you want to admit it. Bear with me:

Imagine human sexuality as a ruler. At one end, there are all the straight people and on the other side are all the gay people. On any ruler, there is a center right? And there’s an area between the center and either end. I think that probably there is only a small amount of people in the world who are either 100% straight or 100% gay. The rest of us slobs fall in the middle somewhere and typically either round up or round down based on what our typical impulses would be.

Sorry I couldn't find a good 12 inch ruler.

Now I’m not calling you all gay, settle down. But what I am saying is that the straight man might see a picture of Johnny Depp and say, “I can see why the gals go crazy over that guy, I wish I were that pretty.” That doesn’t mean you are going to beg him for a kiss if you run into him, it just means you’re not going to gay bash him when you see him because you can recognize his good looks and appreciate that.

And if anyone has EVER seen an episode of the Ellen DeGeneres show knows what I mean. That room is NOT filled with a bunch of bulldykes with tattoos. It’s Joanne Housewife from Skokie, Illinois, dancing when Ellen says dance, putting on blindfolds and playing musical chairs when Ellen tells them they might win a cookie…And I’m sorry but when Ellen dances out in her sneakers, the crowd goes absolutely WILD. Rock star wild. I would feel comfortable placing a bet that 7 out of 10 housewives in that room would allow Ellen to wine and dine them if no one was watching. She’s charming and pozzy so why wouldn’t they? Just sayin.

And Ellen being charming and pozzy doesn’t make those women dump their husbands or think Justin Timberlake is less hot.

And surprise! As much as straight people don’t like bisexual people, gay people like us even less. To gay people, when someone says they’re bisexual, it’s a cop-out. If you’re a woman, you’re just doing it to turn some guy on. Or you’re a wimp and keeping one foot in each pool so you can keep your straight privilege. Or you’re turning your back on the “team”. And understandably a TON of gay people don’t want to date anyone bisexual because there’s a lot of drama that comes with that:

a) If someone is Bisexual and just coming to terms with it, there WILL be a mental breakdown because it’s hard to reconcile your past straight relationships with having feelings for someone of the same sex. And the people around you WILL demand that you call yourself gay because that’s how people are. Everyone wants everyone else to easily identified. And they say, “Why won’t you just ADMIT YOU’RE GAY?” as if it’s that simple. But if it’s not that simple, it’s just not that simple.

b) They see someone who’s bisexual as testing the waters. Why bother to get into a relationship with someone if the fear is always looming that they’re going to call you a “phase”? It is an understandable fear. Why get invested?

c) They see you as being a slut. I mean if half the population is open to everyone else on earth, how is it fair if the entire population is open to you? And if you’re bisexual, exactly how MUCH of the population have you sampled or do you intend to?

d) It’s apolitical (in their eyes). Gay people have to go to hell and back to come out of the closet. Thinking about it, forcing yourself not to think about it, hiding it, being teased about it, trying to change it, realizing it’s futile, coming out, being tortured for it, dating, making mistakes, having family and friends turn on you, having jobs turn on you and finally coming to terms with it. Well that’s a personal and political journey that forms that person’s life. It’s not something they’d do if they didn’t have to. No one heaps criticism on themself if they can help it. So to be bisexual is seen as a cop-out version of what they went through.

So here’s my thing. I am not a slut. I am not confused. I am not a bad person. I was not raised by derelict heathens. I am not kidding myself. I am not accepting straight privilege. There is no reason in the world why I couldn’t just stay I’m a gaylord and call it a day. Sometimes I don’t even bother to correct people because even my gay friends tell me that I’m kidding myself and am just gay, like they know something I don’t know about me. And I don’t take it personally, it’s just the way they feel being projected onto me. *shrug* And I’m not attracted to Joanne Housewife. And I’m not attracted to Joe Lovesfootball. I only am interested in boyish women and the men I’m interested basically look the same. Basically I have one type and it doesn’t matter what is happening under the clothes, haha. I really just like people’s minds and go for kindness, a willingness to look outside the box, weird sense of humor and a big heart. Out of Ellen and Portia, I’d go for Ellen a thousand times over. And the guys that I tend to go for are kind of artsy, gentle and kind (feminine-esque attributes). So that’s that.

And I said I would tell you how I *know* that most humans are bisexual to varying degrees. I know that because a stunning amount of straight people have confessed to me that they’ve had gay thoughts and/or relationships. They just don’t broadcast it. And I don’t think that these people are being something they’re not or living a lie. I think that they, like most people, and most experiences we have in life, saw life firmly ONE way until an unexpected, pleasant experience presented itself. That’s that. But these people probably won’t tell you that because they don’t want to be judged. And I’m not trying to out anyone. The point I’m trying to make is that it is possible that a good portion of the people you know have experienced something like this and it wasn’t right for them so they moved on and don’t holler it from the rooftops.

Which brings me to my next point…I had a friend say to me a couple of months ago that anyone who isn’t out at work is messed up because they are misrespresenting themselves. Whatwhatwhat?! Okay, I typically am not out at work. It’s not because I’m not ashamed of myself it’s just that why do I need to announce every detail of my life, especially if it’s a detail that can be held against me? Like straight people don’t go into work and say, “Attention everyone, I enjoy sex with a member of the opposite sex. That being said, I will be spending a lot of time in my personal life washing dishes and cleaning an apartment with someone of the opposite sex when I’m not at the office. Now that that’s out of the way, does anyone have a copy of the TPR report?” No they don’t. It’s unnatural and would be flat-out weird to do. They put up a picture of their spouse and everyone moves on from there. So I don’t see why it is that gay people should go ANYWHERE and HAVE to out themselves. It’s irrelevant.

And I have personal experience of someone close to me being discriminated in the workplace for being gay at two different jobs. The fact that this person is gay was used to discredit them and make them look bad in two different workplaces and you know what? They had no way to defend themselves, not legally or otherwise. The discrimination was done in a way that you could call it something else. And the law is specific in the ways it will support you. It has to be black and white with a thousand witnesses to back you up. If it’s your word against theirs, you’re screwed. If they have someone to back them up and you don’t, you’re screwed. If the harrassment can be contrued as anything else, it will be. If you speak up for yourself, you WILL be treated like a troublemaker. So you know what? I keep it to myself. Because even if a company states that they would never discriminate, there are plenty of ways to discredit someone. You don’t straight call someone a faggot but you do hold this person to a high standard that you don’t hold anyone else to. You DO record and hold against them their bathroom breaks, every minute they’re late, every conversation they have with someone not work-related, every vacation day taken, every mistake made, every dress-code violation, every everything. And all they need is a paper trail to make it legal. It sucks.

And so I do wonder what could have happened if we’d taken a minute to sit down with those people at Denny’s and say this stuff. I wonder if they’d have been receptive or hostile. I mean that day, I wasn’t feeling well so it probably would’ve escalated but if it had happened on a day where I was feeling like I am right now, it would’ve been an interesting discussion as I’m not their idea of what “gay” is, not really.

Anyway, my favorite band, the Gossip, wrote a song a few years ago called “Standing in the Way of Control”. It’s about what it feels like to be gay and to stand up for yourself…to stand in the way of control. Here are the lyrics:

Your back’s against the wall
There’s no-one home to call
You’re forgetting who you are
You can’t stop crying
It’s part not giving in
And part trusting your friends
You do it all again
And I’m not lying

Standing in the way of control
You live your life
Survive the only way that you know

I’m doing this for you
Because it’s easier to lose
And it’s hard to face the truth
When you think you’re dying
It’s part not giving in
And part trusting your friends
You do it all again
But you don’t stop trying
Standing in the way of control
You live your life
Survive the only way that you know

Standing in the way of control
We live our lives
Because we’re standing in the way of control
We will live our lives
Because we’re standing in the way of control
We live our lives
Because we’re standing in the way of control
We will live our lives

Your back’s against the wall
There’s no-one home to call
You’re forgetting who you are
You can’t stop crying
It’s part not giving in
And part trusting your friends
You do it all again
You don’t stop trying

Standing in the way of control
You live your life
Survive the only way that you know

Here is the video for the song. Apart from the lyrics being important, it’s just a good song. And I was at this concert, haha. Quick story following the video:

Look you can actually see the video camera that the YouTube video was filmed with! Haha.

The loverly Ms. Beth Ditto

This is actually how close we were. We were right at the front of the stage.

Beth Ditto and my girlfriend Hannah Blilie.

Okay, this was the first Gossip concert that me or Kristyn had ever been to. Their album, also named “Standing in the Way of Control” hadn’t come out yet. We went to this concert to check them out bc we liked some of their other CDs. The concert blew our fn minds. The video doesn’t do it justice but Beth’s voice was out of frigging hand. So good. So the Knitting Factory where they played has a front little bar that they kick everyone out into once the show is over. Gossip had been getting steadily more and more popular and so their merchandise table was in the front room and they were still “not famous” to the point that they were manning it and milling around (you won’t catch that now). I told Beth her voice was out of control and she said, “Oh thanks sweetie” and gave me a kiss on the cheek, haha. And I was looking at the merch table and none other than Hannah Blilie herself came up and helped me shop, ha. Here’s what went down:

Hannah: Do you need help with anything?
Me: Oh hi, you guys were great!
Hannah: Thanks!
Me: What CD would you recommend?
Hannah: Standing in the Way of Control because that’s the only one I’m on.
Me: That’s not here…
Hannah: I know, I’m just kidding, it’s not out yet. They’re all good, EVEN though I’m not on them.

Then she told me that she’d just recently joined the band and was excited about it and the new CD coming out. Now if you know anything about the Gossip, it is hands down their most popular album.

So sorry about the braggy-braggart-ness but I just love the Gossip and that night was so awesome. Because of that night, they became my favorite band. It was just fun for me in retrospect to have had the opportunity to talk to someone that I’d later end up looking up to. And I’ve been lucky enough to meet a lot of people I look up to but it’s always like timed or there’s other people waiting or security or ya know…whatever. This was just…what it was. Awesome.

Carrie Prejean is the worst and here’s why.

The Deeevil.

I don’t watch Beauty Pageants, I’m just not interested. It’s not a “stand”, it’s just not interesting to me. When Perez Hilton asked Carrie Prejean her views on gay marriage, she responded that marriage should be between a man and a woman. Obviously I do not agree. I did not like, though, how the next day and weeks following, he created a hate parade about it. I mean I think she has a pretty outdated, prejudiced attitude but I mean there was only one way she could have answered his question without being ripped a new one and that’s not fair. Here’s how it all began:

So, yeah she’s an idiot but she can be enlightened and maybe learn something from it at this point. She wasn’t rude or derogatory at all. He, however, went bananas on her:

He just always manages to take it to a level…

Then all that blahblahblah cross-talk happened.
* Pageant says she’s not meeting her commitments
* She says her religious beliefs are being persecuted
* Nude pictures of her are released (which she says were “artistic” and done “when she was 17” and also “the wind managed to blow her top open”…come on…)
* We find out she got breast implants via the Pageant committee.
* Trump saved her post, then got rid of her…

All kinds of shit went down. And the longer it went on, the nastier she became. I mean it’s one thing to have an opinion, it is another thing entirely to join up with hate groups which she did (National Organization for Marriage).

And then…she sues the Pageant for all kinds of damages, including religious persecution and slander and SETTLES FOR NOTHING when a masturbation tape is brought up!!! And she went on Sean Hannity and called it the “worst mistake of her life”. Then like 7 more videos and 30 more nude pictures are released!!!!!

And then there’s this:

She seems like she was coached and just sticking to the “line” she was given. “It’s inappropriate, Larry”.

Now there is nothing inherently “wrong” with taking nude photos or whatever you want to do…I mean you are taking a risk but it’s your body, your risk and your life.

She is “the worst” because she has been on an almost year-long tirade about how certain “perverts” rights should be curtailed. She wants the right to get married, have kids, have sex with who she wants to, etc. She goes from “I’m sorry this is just my opinion” to commercials, speaking engagements, a BOOK?! I mean:

a) This is all very, very self-serving in THE MOST ugly way because in the beginning it just seemed like a personal opinion but then to make MONEY off trashing people’s right to life, liberty and happiness? How is that Christian?

b) So what she’s saying ultimately is that perverts don’t have the right to love but non-perverts have the right to make porn?

c) She just seems to be very self-righteous, ignorant and hypocritical.

d) She had the chutzpah it took to make almost 40 pornographic pictures of herself but then asked her boyfriend to tell the media that she was 17 when she made them so they can’t be posted. Since when is lying ethical?

I don’t know, my family are Christian and I was raised Catholic. Even if they don’t agree with same-sex marriage, they’d never want me or anyone else in a same-sex relationship to be unhappy or oppressed. And she is going out there on a “Christian” platform, representing a “Christian” idea. In other words, she’s making everyone look bad because she wants to make money. And she’s hurting a lot of people’s feelings to do it.

Sweetheart, you’re pretty. Stick with that. There’s a reason no one asks Kate Moss her political opinions. We don’t want to know and that’s good enough for her.

Another thing is that I feel kind of bad for her. If she’s 22 like she says she is, she has made a royal “Oops” of her life. You don’t know who you are or how you really feel at 22. What could have just been verbal diarhea has now turned into something she HAS NO CHOICE but to keep as a lifetime “moral” all because if she admits she’s wrong now, the wolves will tear her apart. Like these are the kinds of opinions a person has and then learns better when they make a friend who is gay/black/fat/disabled/whatever. They just don’t do it on national television and get blasted by like the nastiest man in entertainment (perez). So, yeah that sucks and I feel for her. BUT the commercial? The book? She’s taken it too far and become an accidental emblem of hate for someone like me which seems like the exact opposite of what she was trying to do, right? So who the hell does she have around her that is taking her down this path? She is STILL entitled to her opinion but WHOEVER is telling her to sue the California Pageant and book only anti-gay speaking engagements and write books and condescend to Larry King ONLY has $$$$ in their eyes. If she truly is a 22 year old girl, she is being taken for a frigging ride so that someone else can make money. Just as soon as whoever is pulling the strings cashes in, she’ll be dropped and we’ll still all loathe her. It truly is a damn shame. UNLESS she flips the script and becomes a fervent gay marriage activist…and then she’ll be the second coming of Mary. *Here’s hoping*

Lowlife

Erik Garcia, you are an asshole.

Now I’m in trouble

The gmail goddesses have locked me out of my account. I have been trying to clean my pictures off my hard drive by zip-filing them and then sending them to an underused gmail account. Basically I have no dinero to spend on fancy flash drives, etc so I am taking the broke down (and tedious) way out. Unfortunately, this made gmail “flag” my account for suspicious activity and I may have “violated my terms of agreement”. Yes, you DO HAVE 78K MB of space available to you but if you USE it, you will get slapped. Apparently they want all non-email files to be stored on Picasa. You get 1 MB free and then every MB after said MB is gonna cost ya. Well I already pay for a Flickr Pro account and I have WAAAAAAY more than 1MB of pictures to store so that’s not going to work.

Damn just when you think you’re minding your own bidness.

Weird the way the world works.

For the past few years, my Achilles Heel has been Perezhilton.com.  I know it’s silly, I know it’s vapid, I know it’s basically junk food as far as entertainment and productive use of time goes.  But it entertains me in an “I don’t have to think” fashion and I like that the celebrities are shown warts and all.  As time has gone by, I’ve kind of found Perez’s posts to be less comical and more derogatory.  His attitude towards women seems very misogynistic in terms of his commentary on size, age, looks, youth, behavior, etc.  He has his favorites though and they can do no wrong.  He also has his favorites to pick on and torture.  It’s weird because all of these people, picked on or not, seek out his favor.  It’s like they aren’t legitimate unless he has their opinion, bad or good.

And what’s weird is that he posts pictures of the same people who he picks on and berates at his birthday party.  And THEN he almost seems flattered that these celebrities would be there and fawns over them only to slam them the next day.

In black and white, this seems vile.  Why would I pay attention to this?  Why would I give it the time of day?  Well the website is pink, there’s plenty of pictures, it’s easy to navigate and the author speaks in a familiar, chummy voice.  It’s easy to get sucked in.

Just recently, what with Twittermania taking over the nation, I too, picked up my “smart phone” and got in on the action.  I “followed” Perez, as did a million other people.  But soon, I started seeing how vicious he could be.  Calling Kirstie Alley a fat bitch, telling Mariah to ditch her song choices for ones he’d prefer, telling Christina Aguilera that her last album sucked, the list goes on.  And it’s weird because he’d snipe at these people publicly and then just as quickly flatter them and fawn if they paid him attention.  It’s pathological.

So just about a week ago, when discussing these “findings” with friends, we all predicted that something was about to go down with Perez.  It’s easy to laugh and giggle when he’s behind the facade of a bubble-gum pink website with pretty pictures.  It’s different when the wall is taken down a little bit and you get to see the person behind (on Twitter).  I think it made a lot of people kind of step back and go, “Whoa”.  This guy is a megalomaniac.  And his platform is “truth”, not “opinion” but “truth”.  He thinks someone’s ugly so they are.  He thinks a CD sucks so it does.  He thinks someone’s gay so they are.

Which brings me to my next point…Perez thinks he’s doing the world a service by outing people.  He’s taking one for the team knowing everyone will hate him but hoping that outing people will make being gay more mainstream.  The problem with that is that it takes a long time for people to figure themselves out and sexuality is not something you can nail down.  It’s less about sex and more about being happy with someone you want to spend all of your time with.  That’s not something that just “happens” overnight, not for many of us.

And then this whole Will.i.am debaucle happened.  Bitch Magazine wrote a good essay on what happened.  Here it is:

http://bitchmagazine.org/post/a-different-kind-of-f-word-perez-hilton-and-gayslurgate

Basically the articles seeks to understand just what is it that makes this whole story interesting?  Is it that a gay man and/or a black man were involved?  Is it Perez getting clocked?  Is it that someone was called a faggot?  Is it that the word was hurled by a gay man?  Is it that Perez states that he used the word that would hurt the most, that BEING the word “faggot”?  Is it that that word in particular pissed off Will.i.am?  Is it that Perez had it coming?  Is it that we’re happy about Perez getting clocked?  The list goes on and on…

And it’s strange because in my own life, I had a friend who was JUST LIKE Perez.  Looks like him, talks like him, acts like him, the list goes on and on for that too…It might even be why I was interested in Perez in the first place.  That particular friend and I fell out after I started dating Kristyn.  He’s gay and had had to go through a lot to come out of the closet.  And then here I come, dating a girl and not even having myself figured out.  That person dehumanized me for it and totally cut me out of his life.  For years I wondered what went wrong.  And this friend is funny, charismatic and when he’s your best friend (for the day), you have a great time.  And when you’re out of his favor, you want back in.  It’s so damn weird.  And dangerous.  Now I’m not going to credit this guy with much, it’s just that he’s funny.  But it’s exactly the same with Perez.  He has a sharp wit that makes people want to be around him but the reality is that behind that sharp wit is a person who takes his opinion for fact, influences people to feel the way he does and turns his sharp tongue on you so fast your head is left spinning.  But here’s the thing, you have to like it.  If you don’t, you will be on his shit list forever.  In fact, this year, being an idiot, I tried to mend things with this friend because I thought that all this happened because we were kids.  I wanted to apologize for hurting his feelings and I wanted to, not be friends, but to resolve this problem and move on.  It had been causing me a lot of stress and so I sent him an apology email.  This is part of the response I got:

“…you are damaged goods because of how you father treated you; or that you could never be a true friend to me because you can’t find the true you?  Are you a lesbian? straight? bi?  This in no way is a reflection of what I think; for all I know, you have come to terms with=2 0these issues, but it is simply to illustrate an attempt to say the most horrible things I can…”

Ugh.  It’s so weird to think that I ever considered such a person to be my friend.  And what’s weird is that I probably WAS friends with someone like that specifically BECAUSE my relationship with my father is problematic.  Truth be told, this person never once kept a secret I told them, never once remembered my birthday, never once tried to make me feel better when I was down.  He was a fairweather friend, I was just too “damaged” to know the difference.

I don’t know, I’m not saying that this guy OR Perez are the boogeyman.  I guess I’m just trying to say that it kind of spooks me out that some people, especially these kinds of people have the platform to change minds, influence opinions and excel.  When you’re involved in that shit, it seems like maybe you’ve done something wrong.  I mean look at Fergie.  She has reconstructed her entire face solely on Perez’s opinion and it’s still not good enough for him.  He calls her “fugly”, “fat”, “talentless”, etc on a regular basis and all it takes is her calling him out in private one night for him to angrily lash out, call her friend a faggot and then create all of this drama to get his “fans” to destroy these people who aren’t hurting anybody.

I guess I’m just realizing that the amount of stress I put myself through for this one “friend” was totally wasted time because guys like this aren’t special, they’re a dime a dozen.  And if you’re special too, they’re going to kick you down because there’s only room enough for one diva in the spotlight.

In this scenario, I stole his spotlight.  In Perez’s he used he situation to his advantage to steal the spotlight before anyone else could take it from him and it’s going to be his downfall.  In my own life, I still think about this stuff from time to time even though I know I shouldn’t give it the time of day.  But I will never forget this person calling me “damaged goods” because what’s funny is that it was BEING “damaged goods” that led me to the positive life I have now.

And as for Perez, he should just apologize for using that word as an insult, to his readers, to Will.i.am, to GLAAD.  Obvi Will.i.am’s manager should apologize for hitting him too but honestly, I think that hate speech is more dangerous that a punch.  That punch only hurt Perezhilton.  It’s not acceptable behavior but the only person hurt was the target of the punch.  By comparison though, the use of the word “faggot” hurt way more people and will be his downfall if I have any say in it.

Noonprop8.com’s Facts vs. Fiction

Here’s what noonprop8. com has to say about it.

http://www. noonprop8. com/about/fact-vs-fiction

Facts v.Fiction
Proposition 8 would eliminate fundamental rights for a group of Californians. It’s unfair and it’s wrong.

Fiction: Prop 8 doesn’t discriminate against gay people.

Fact: Prop 8 is simple: it eliminates the rights for same-sex couples to marry. Prop 8 would deny equal protections and write discrimination against one group of people—lesbian and gay people—into our state constitution.

Fiction: Teaching children about same-sex marriage will happen here unless we pass Prop 8.

Fact: Not one word in Prop 8 mentions education. And no child can be forced, against the will of their parents, to be taught anything about health and family issues at school. California law prohibits it.

California’s top educators including Superintendent of Schools Jack O’Connell and California Teachers all agree: Prop 8 has nothing to do with education.

Fiction: Churches could lose their tax-exemption status.

Fact: The court decision regarding marriage specifically says “no religion will be required to change its religious policies or practices with regard to same-sex couples, and no religious officiant will be required to solemnize a marriage in contravention of his or her religious beliefs.

Fiction: A Massachusetts case about a parent’s objection to the school curriculum will happen here.

Fact: California gives parents an absolute right to remove their kids and opt-out of teaching on health and family instruction they don’t agree with. The opponents know that California law already covers this and Prop 8 won’t affect it, so they bring up an irrelevant case in Massachusetts.

Fiction: Four Activist Judges in San Francisco…

Fact: Prop 8 is about eliminating a fundamental right. Judges didn’t grant the right, the constitution guarantees the right. Proponents of Prop 8 use an outdated and stale argument that judges aren’t supposed to protect rights and freedoms. Prop 8 is about whether Californians are willing to amend the constitution for the sole purpose of eliminating a fundamental right for one group of citizens.

Fiction: If Prop 8 isn’t passed, people can be sued over personal beliefs.

Fact: California’s laws already prohibit discrimination against anyone based on race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. This has nothing to do with marriage.

Fiction: Pepperdine University supports the Yes on 8 campaign.

Fact: The University has publicly disassociated itself from Professor Richard Peterson of Pepperdine University, who is featured in the ad, and has asked to not be identified in the Yes on 8 advertisements.

Fiction: Unless Prop 8 passes, California parents won’t have the right to object to what their children are taught in school.

Fact: California law clearly gives parents and guardians broad authority to remove their children from any health instruction if it conflicts with their religious beliefs or moral convictions.